I am all alone in my quiet room,
  And the windows are open wide and free
  To let in the south wind’s kiss for me,
  While I rock in the softly gathering gloom,
  And that subtle fragrance steals.

  Just as a loving, tender hand
  Will sometimes steal in yours,
  It softly comes through the open doors,
  And memory wakes at its command,—­
  The scent of that good cigar.

  And what does it say?  Ah! that’s for me
  And my heart alone to know;
  But that heart thrills with a sudden glow,
  Tears fill my eyes till I cannot see,—­
  From the scent of that good cigar.

KATE A. CARRINGTON.

TO MY CIGAR.

  Yes, social friend, I love thee well,
    In learned doctor’s spite;
  Thy clouds all other clouds dispel,
    And lap me in delight.

  What though they tell, with phizzes long,
    My years are sooner past! 
  I would reply with reason strong,
    They’re sweeter while they last.

  When in the lonely evening hour,
    Attended but by thee,
  O’er history’s varied page I pore,
    Man’s fate in thine I see.

  Oft as the snowy column grows,
    Then breaks and falls away,
  I trace how mighty realms thus rose,
    Thus tumbled to decay.

  Awhile like thee earth’s masters burn
    And smoke and fume around;
  And then, like thee, to ashes turn,
    And mingle with the ground.

  Life’s but a leaf adroitly rolled,
    And Time’s the wasting breath
  That, late or early, we behold
    Gives all to dusty death.

  From beggar’s frieze to monarch’s robe,
    One common doom is passed;
  Sweet Nature’s works, the swelling globe,
    Must all burn out at last.

  And what is he who smokes thee now? 
    A little moving heap,
  That soon, like thee, to fate must bow,
    With thee in dust must sleep.

  But though thy ashes downward go,
    Thy essence rolls on high;
  Thus, when my body lieth low,
    My soul shall cleave the sky.

CHARLES SPRAGUE.

KNICKERBOCKER.

  Shade of Herrick, Muse of Locker,
  Help me sing of Knickerbocker! 
  Boughton, had you bid me chant
  Hymns to Peter Stuyvesant,
  Had you bid me sing of Wouter,
  He, the onion head, the doubter! 
  But to rhyme of this one—­Mocker! 
  Who shall rhyme to Knickerbocker? 
  Nay, but where my hand must fail,
  There the more shall yours avail;
  You shall take your brush and paint
  All that ring of figures quaint,—­
  All those Rip Van Winkle jokers,
  All those solid-looking smokers,
  Pulling at their pipes of amber,
  In the dark-beamed Council Chamber.

  Only art like yours can touch
  Shapes so dignified—­and Dutch;
  Only art like yours can show
  How the pine logs gleam and glow,
  Till the firelight laughs and passes
  ’Twixt the tankards and the glasses,
  Touching with responsive graces
  All those grave Batavian faces,
  Making bland and beatific
  All that session soporific.